Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Amphitryon 38
2. Ocean
3. Quatermass And The Pit
4. Major Bloodnok s Stomach
5. Outside
6. Science And Industry
7. Artist Speaks
8. Splendour That Was Rome
9. TV March
10. Interval Signal
11. Phra The Phoenician
12. Full Circle The Stick Up
13. Time Beat
14. Music For A Magic Carpet
15. Ideal Home Exhibition
16. Time On Our Hands
17. Arabic Science And Industry
18. Chem Lab Mystery
19. Know Your Car (Get Out And Get Under)
20. Dr Who
21. Tardis
22. Choice
23. Hard Luck Hall
24. Westminster At Work
25. Talk Out
26. Science And Health
27. Secrets Of The Chasm
28. Slide
29. New View of Politics
30. Radio Stoke On Trent
31. Radio Stoke On Trent
32. Bobby Shaftoe
33. Lambton Worm
34. Environmental Studies
35. Chronicle
36. Great Zoos Of The World
37. PM
38. Tros Y Gareg (Over The Stone)
39. Dance from Noah
40. Good Morning Wales
41. Sequence
42. Martian March Past
43. Changes (Suite)
44. Thomas The Rhymer
45. Merry Go Round
46. Fanfare
47. BBC2 Serial
48. Plunderers
49. Secret War
50. Quirky
51. Newton
52. Contact
53. For Love Or Money
54. Mysterioso
55. Astronauts
56. Moving Form
57. Whisper From Space
58. Land And People
59. Swirley
60. Greenwich Chorus
61. Hurdy Gurdy
62. PM
63. Broken Biscuit Club
64. Unseeing Eye
65. Milonga
66. Mainstream
67. Seascape
68. Yellow Moon

Disc 2:

1. Brighton Pier
2. Whale
3. Radio Blackburn
4. Lascaux
5. Comet Is Coming
6. Macrocosm
7. Planet Earth
8. Catch the Wind
9. Fancy Fish (Aquarium)
10. Houdin's Musical Box
11. Computers In The Real World
12. Believe It Or Not
13. Armagiddean War Games
14. Dawn
15. Ghost In The Water
16. Radiophonic Rock
17. Woman Of Paris
18. Dandelion Countdown (Pictures In Your Mind)
19. Heart of the Matter
20. Dead Entry
21. No Easy Road
22. Slambash Wangs Of A Compo Gormer
23. Great Rift
24. Kingdom Of The Thunder Dragon
25. Archery And Cranes
26. Artwork
27. Jewel In The Sun
28. Techno
29. OK2 (You In Mind)
30. Doctors To Be
31. Secret Nature
32. Secret Of Life (Cracking Code)
33. Salem's Lot
34. Music From The Sea Sea
35. Music from The Demon Headmaster
36. Lost Gardens Of Heligan
37. Michael Palin's Full Circle
38. Assignment (Kofi Annan)
39. Dance From Noah

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5847 in Music
• Released on: 2008-11-03
• Number of discs: 2
• Dimensions: .24 pounds

Customer Reviews

About time!
This is a brilliant album, and long, long overdue. It showcases the work of the much-missed BBC Radiophonic Workshop between 1958 and 1997, including music from "The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy", Radio 4's "PM" news programme, "The Demon Headmaster", the BBC's Natural World programmes and many others. I was particularly pleased to see the inclusion of Peter Howell's "The Astronauts".

Most of the album is essentially a CD re-issue of two BBC Radiophonic Workshop LPs: "21" and "Soundhouse", released in 1979 and 1983, but also contains some gems that have never before been released.

Of course, the collection contains perhaps the workshop's most famous recording - the theme from Dr Who, and the Tardis sound effect.

Along with the two recent CD collections of music by John Baker, this is a much welcomed addition to the slowly growing collection of music by the workshop issued on CD. It's taken an unbelievably long time, but at last, the full scope of the Radiophonic Workshop's composers' work is gradually getting the recognition it so richly deserves.

Sadly, as the progress in technology marched on, the BBC, in its "wisdom", decided that it could buy mass-produced "electronic music" more cheaply that the workshop could produce it, so in 1997 they closed the workshop for good, and in doing so lost the creativity and talent evident in so much of the work produced by the workshop over its life.

As the saying goes - "they don't make 'em like that any more".

Hopefully more albums are on the way...

A world of aural innovation and invention
Okay I'll get it out of the way early. Without doubt the most famous piece of music to emanate from the BBC,s Radiophonic workshop is the theme tune to Dr Who ( I still have this on 7" vinyl )- a serious contender for the best TV theme tune ever written ( now there's a debate) .It still sounds brilliant to this day , quirky , slightly spooky and alien yet memorable and quite catchy . Its on here in it's original form ( the new Dr Who theme has been updated with portentous strings ). It is however only a smidgeon of the output from the revered workshop .
This is a chronologically ordered compilation covering the output of the workshop from 1958 to 1997 before some dunderhead at the BBC( John Birt in a move that meant every BBC department that couldn't cover its costs had to be axed. The workshop was given five years to break even but due to it's high running costs- it needed engineers as well as composers - failed) decided to terminate( or exterminate it to use a more apt parlance) it so they could pay Chris Moyle's his inflated salary or some other such buffoonery . The double-disc collection is produced by Mark Ayres, surely the world's leading authority on the Radiophonic Workshop, having been a BBC composer and eventual archivist for the now sadly defunct department.
The earlier material from the likes of Delia Derbyshire is truly startling , almost avant garde in it's scope and compositional wizardry . "Talk Out" from 1964 is an extraordinary perspicacious piece of rhythmic music that even today might raise an eyebrow or two. I was especially pleased at the inclusion of Desmond Briscoe's music for the superb "Quatermass And The Pit [1967]" which still sounds eerie sinister and insidiously extraterrestrial.
As the years wore on the workshop came to rely more on standard electronic equipment and lost a little of it's singular sonic inventiveness.. The particular resourcefulness that saw people like Delia Derbyshire and Daphne Oram manipulate tapes and record strange natural or environmental sounds is sacrificed for a more sober less ingenious approach Some of the later material is a little rote and one or two are truly awful but others like the theme From Demon Headmaster, The - Look Into My Eyes and the stuff from "Blake's 7 - Series 1 - Complete [1978] " "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy [1981] " and Salem's Lot" not to mention the abbreviated little soundcsapes from programmes such as "The BBC Natural World Collection" and The Living Planet [1983] " are truly evocative .Miniature aural nuggets of magic.
Back to Dr Who then. The sound of the Tardis de-materialising or indeed materialising ( included here) was made by Brian Hodgson running his keys along the rusty bass strings of a broken piano, with the recording slowed down to make an even lower sound. Genius. No surprise then to learn that George Martin ,another technical studio whiz assisted Maddalena Fagandini with "Time Beat" which is also included here.
How many artists have been influenced by the Work Of The Radiophonic workshop? ....Well I don't know ..who do you think I am? Yet I'm willing to bet my Friday lunchtime treat that a great many influential innovative artists around today owe something to the work of a collection of what were in effect boffins and producers.

stunningly good
this is the best thing i've bought off amazon for a while. i love it, and you will too. i am too young to remember most of these tunes, except for the really famous ones like doctor who but i have this cd in the car and it is such fun to think, 'that sounds like it has to be, oh i don't know, the royal wedding theme', and then find out it is actually 'magic carpet ride' or something.

i really really enjoy listening to this and i would recommend it to everyone. some of these pieces are really,,,,,, beautiful.